The Festival of Lights
by Nardragon
Summary: Young Justice is invited to experience Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights. Join them as they learn about this foreign festival and how it's meaning may relate to them.


I've been writing for FanFiction for over a year now and have been reading for…I forget how long. I've thought about doing a holiday related story for a while but didn't really know what to do.  
There are so many Christmas, Halloween, Valentine's and other such stories but I've never seen a Diwali done.  
For those of you who don't know Diwali, Divali or Deepavali is the Hindu festival of lights, and my favourite festival.  
There are several why reasons it is celebrated but one of the main reasons is the symbolism of 'light over darkness' or the 'victory of good over evil' (Robin explains it better a little bit later).  
Defeating evil is something the team does on a daily basis so who better than them to experience this festival.

At the end of the story I included links to pages with pictures of anything you all may not be familiar with, especially the Indian garments the team wears, just copy and paste the links without the spaces and replace the brackets () with .com (and try using a image search in your web browser).  
And if the links still don't work then the next best thing is use the words in a search engine to help you get a better idea of the clothes and other concepts I included.

* * *

NEW DELHI  
October 29, 13:13

"You think you stop can light?" Dr. Light yelled as he fired energy beams at the team.  
"Dude, we kicked your ass last time we meet." Kid Flash said. Artemis cleared her through loudly. "Alright the girls kicked your ass last time." He corrected himself.

"Well I'd like to see how you manage to stop me now. I've connected myself to this city's power generator. I have the power of all of Delhi. Do you want to know why I choose Delhi for the setting of my newest conquest?"  
"Not really," Superboy said.  
"But I get the feeling you're going to tell us anyway." Rocket said.  
"Allow me to enlighten you…" The team groaned at the pun, "Now this wondrous country is celebrating the festival of lights."  
"Hanukkah? Isn't that observed near the end of November?" Kid Flash asked.  
"Not Hanukkah you fools."

Robin dropped down on top of Light for the ceiling. "As interesting as this whole lesson has been I think it's about time we turn off the lights." He placed a batarang on Light's energy pack and jumped off. The pack sparked violently and exploded sending light straight into the air. He landed face first, unconscious.

A couple minutes later Aqualad was shaking the hand of a excited official. The man rattled off quickly in Hindi.  
_'M'gann, if you would." _Aqualad said metanlly.  
_'Oh, right…'_ She placed a hand to her temple and the man's words suddenly turned to English although the words didn't quite match the movement of his lips.  
_'Combined the eight of us speck over twenty languages and Hindi isn't one of them?' _Zatanna asked.  
_'I know some Hindi.' _Superboy said.  
_'Why would we need to know Hindi when we have our very own Rosetta Stone.' _Robin said indicating to Miss M.  
"Can't thank you enough. It would have been a disaster is the festival had been marred by this attack." The official continued.  
"Can I ask, what is this festival?" Aqualad asked.  
"Why Deepavali of course. It's one of our most important festivals. If you would like too you are welcomed to stay for the festivities. Tonight we light deeyas, it is beautiful."

The team looked at each other.  
"Oh can we stay?" Miss Martian asked, "It sounds interesting,"  
"I'm curious," Rocket said.  
"I suppose it couldn't hurt," Aqualad said and turned back to the man who was still shaking his hand, "Sir we would love to join you for Deepavali."  
He grinned and called for someone to see to the team. "You will not be disappointed I assure you."

That was how they found themselves a few hours later in a room surrounded by several plates of Indian food and sweets. In the corner of the room there were racks of clothes, since their host had insisted they change out of their uniforms. The boys had already changed into Kurtas, a form of Indian wear*. Kid Flash was wearing a cream and red outfit, Robin and Superboy were both in black but Superboy's was much less detailed. Aqualad was in dark green.

The girls walked in, all wearing Indian wear of their own. Artemis and Zatanna and were in Shalwars, green and red respectively. Rocket was in multicoloured Ghagra. Miss Martian was wearing a purple Sari. Wally wolf whistled when he saw them.  
"It defiantly was good idea to stay. You all look amazing," He said eyeing Artemis.  
"And I though American girls went all out for their prom." Rocket said, "These aren't even the best they had. You should have seen the working in some of the outfits they offered us,"  
"They do know how to go all out," Zatanna said.  
"I just love the clothes, I would live here for than alone."  
"You can just take a zeta here when ever," Superboy said.  
"It's not the same. It's not like I'll get to see the fashion like I would if I were living here."  
"I believe they only dress this extravagant for special occasions." Aqualad said.

"You know we're here for this festival but we don't know anything about it." Kid Flash said.  
"About that," Robin said bring up his holo screen, "I've been don't some research on Deepavali,"  
"Of course you have, so what do you have for us boy wonder," Zatanna said sitting next to him. The other gathered around so they could see the screen too.

"Deepavali, Diwali or Divali is the Hindu festival of lights. It last five days here in India. Some countries only observe it for one day though like Trinidad and Tobago and London. It's called the festival of lights because they light these earthen oil lamps called deeyas**." He showed them a picture of a small bowl shaped item made of clay. There was oil in it and lighted wick, "They light hundreds of these to symbolise light over darkness, good over evil and all that. I tried looking for why they celebrate but it seems there are several reasons. The most common one I found is this story about Raama***.

"He was a prince who apparently had superhuman powers. He was exiled from his kingdom for 14 years and when he returned home the people rejoiced and lit deeyas to mark his homecoming."  
"Wait, I'm confused if he was the prince why was he exiled then allowed back." Superboy asked.  
"From what I understand his stepmom wanted her own son to have the throne, but she was being influenced by dark forces. The step mom convinced Raama's dad, the king to kick him out and give the throne to Raama's half brother. Then there's this part about Raama's wife getting kidnapped by Ravana, who apparently was a super evil King, like Luthor level evil. Raama and his other brother gathered an army and went after Ravana. Raama kills Ravana and saves the day."

"That sounds like a plot from Game of Thrones." Rocket said.  
"That sounds like a day from our lives." Kid Flash said.  
"Doesn't explain why he was let back into his city thought." Superboy said.  
"I think it was kind of fate that he was exiled, because apparently it was prophesied that he would kill the Ravana guy. The only reason Raama when to war against Ravana was because he took his wife, and Ravana only had the chance to kidnap Sita, that's Raama's wife by the way, because they were living in the forest, in exile. "  
"Wow, talk about complicated." Superboy said.  
"Said by the guy who has the DNA for archenemies in him." Zatanna said to Superboy. He smirked a little.

There was a knock on the door and girl walked in. "We are about to begin lighting the deeyas, would you care to join us?" She asked in a soft voice. The team stood up and followed her outside where it was already getting dark. Dozens of people were in the yard. Some were pouring oil into the deeyas and lighting them. Others were placing them around the yard, on the ground, along banisters, in windows, pretty much everywhere. In the centre of the yard young girls were arranging the little earthen pots so they formed the shape of a flower, a lotus.

M'gann helped them by levitating the deeyas into place, much to the girls' delight. Wally helped out by running around and re-lighting any deeyas that might have gone out, although he ended up outing more deeyas with the wind he created from running. So he and Artemis opted to walking and re-lighting the flames.

Robin was ecstatic to learn they set off fireworks and variety of firecrackers to 'scare away evil sprits'. He helped the boys set up different fireworks and even set off some smoke and noise bombs from his own stock. Dozens of children had come to see the young heroes. Aqualad entertained them by lifting up deeyas in streams of waters, while keeping them lit.

After a while the team went for a walk looking at how other houses had set up their deeyas. There were rows and rows of the little lights everywhere flickering gently in the night. Children and teenagers were running around setting of cherry bombs and waving sparklers. Even though it was the middle of the night and there was no moon out the place glowed brightly.

A few kids offered the team sparklers, Zatnna had a sudden inspiration and took a few of the sparklers.  
"Ekae eseht sthgil ecnad!" The sparklers burst to life and took to the air making tiny fireworks above the children's heads. They squealed in delight and clapped their hands above their heads trying to capture the dancing lights, but the mini fireworks remained just out of their reach. They took off running after the lights.

"Very nice," Artemis said.  
"Why thank you." Zatanna took a bow, "They look happy don't they?" She was smiling gently at the children still running after her enchanted lights.

"Hey look at that." Wally said pointing to arches of deeyas****, he ran over examining it. "How'd you make this?" he asked.  
"The arch is made from bamboo. We split the bamboo and bend them into the ground."  
"That is so cool."  
"Thank you."

"Everything is so beautiful. It's almost magical," M'gann said.  
"I have to agree with you Miss M. and I know a thing or two about magic." Zatanna said grinning.  
"All the flames aren't bothering you?" Conner asked the Martian. She shook her head.  
"I thought it would but I feel fine." She said.  
"We have to this again sometime," Robin said.  
"And we should bring Black Canary, she'll love this," Zatanna said.  
"We should get the league to come, they don't do much cultural stuff do they?" Rocket said.  
"Some of the league aren't really the cultural type are they? Could you imagine Bat's lighting a deeya?" Robin said. The rest of the team laughed at the image of Batman lighting a little deeya.

"But we must do this again, maybe we can visit another country that celebrates Deepavali next year." Aqualad suggested.  
"The festival of lights, it's aptly named." Robin said, "And really is a perfect symbol for the power of light over darkness."  
"Since when do you get all poetic?" Zatanna asked. He laughed.  
"What can I say? I'm in the Diwali mood." He pulled up his holo screen, "I have to say Hindu's have some interesting festivals. There's this one called Holi. From what I understand they run around throwing colored powders and liquid at each other, while singing."  
"Okay, I don't care what it takes we are getting our mentors to that with us." Wally said with a laugh.

"I just had an idea. Why don't we get the bio-ship? Can you imagine the view from above?" M'gann said.

The team ran off to the nearest place that was big enough for the bio-ship to land in. From the air they had a breath taking view of the city. The entire city was a light, but there was no way to mistake this glow with that of electrical lights. This was somehow brighter and yet more gentle at the same time. Of all the things they had experienced together they knew this was one of the better ones. When they finally decided that it was time to head home they said good bye by setting off fireworks from the bio-ship. With some quick modification from Robin and Miss M's telekinesis they made the fireworks spell out

_"Shubh Divali."_ (Happy Divali)

* * *

1)Examples of the team's Indian wear –

Kid Flash – www. friendsmania () / fashion / wp-content / uploads / 2012 / 12 / Dhoti-Style-Sherwani-Gold-Brocade-Designs-2013-201 4-1 . jpg

Robin – images. krishnasarees () / images / products / zoom /1 38028481 8- 63312800 .jpg

Superboy – gulfprices () wp-content / uploads / 2013 / 04 / embroidered-kurta-kameez-for-men-2013-black-party- wadding. jpg

Aqualad –www. indiabazaaronline () product_images /r / 793 / si155115-rama-green-men-kurta-payjama_11357_std .jpg

Artemis – goodbells () images /detailed / 33 / Anarkali_salwar_kameez_R31P66. jpg

Zatanna – www. indianclothstore () productimages / black-designer-salwar-kameez-6551 .jpg

Miss Martain – freenewfashiondesign ()/ wp-content / uploads / 2011 / 10 / Small-motif-Indian-Sari-fabric .jpg

Rocket – () / data2 / MB / AM / MY - 3707973552 /1983-500x500 .jpg

* * *

2)Deeyas - . . /_MdYjKcOslkE/ TBg1zEd_xsI / AAAAAAAAAAU / udUKLTTjXmU /S748 /

* * *

3)Raama – . /-E6sQ_WZmy_Y / TaPEO8Y0lZI/ AAAAAAAAAFo / 9hgWphXgbkk / s1600 / lord-rama-1-r .jpg

* * *

4)Bamboo Arches with deeyas – farm1 .staticflickr 25 / 58866815_382a9d14d3_ z. jpg

* * *

I hope you enjoyed the story. In actuality Divali isn't until November 3rd this year, but I'll probably be to busy with my own Divali celebrations to upload then. I enjoyed having to explain the concept of Divali from the point of view of someone who didn't know anything about the festival.

If any of you have any other questions please, don't hesitate to ask me in a review or PM.

This is Nardragon wishing you all a Shubh Divali!

Nardragon ~ until the next page.


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